Where You Go

by Claire Cain

  He opened the car door for me, and I climbed into his dad’s white Honda. It was strange, both of us living adult lives in other places but reuniting here in our hometown without any of our own stuff. In some ways it felt simpler not to be in his car, and in other ways it felt like sixteen-year-old me was finally getting to live out her fantasy date in high school, just a decade or so too late. I’d already stopped short of yelling, “I’ll be home by eleven!” as I left the house.

  He drove downtown and parked, and we wandered in to one of my favorite restaurants. My parents knew the owners and growing up we ate there nearly every Sunday after church. I even did a stint as hostess there during high school before I graduated. The microbrewery and restaurant was home to many of my favorites—illogically good fish tacos, considering it was in the heart of a land-locked state, a salmon sandwich on house-made focaccia bread that would blow minds, and bread pudding worth crying over—and I prayed my stomach would settle and my appetite would return. I was beginning to feel frustrated that so far, I couldn’t relax and just enjoy the time with this old friend.

  And so there we sat, smiling at each other and looking around. “I haven’t been here in so long. I love Pete’s. My last few visits have been so short, I haven’t made it in.” I wiped a hand over the laminated menu, brushing off invisible crumbs and fingerprints.

  “It is good. I’ve been dreaming of their porter for a while. Not much good beer drinking in Afghanistan as it turns out. That whole general order number one really keeps us in check.” The waiter returned with our beers then, and Luke smiled down at his tall, cold pint.

  He took it in his hand almost reverently, and I couldn’t look away as he sipped the still-foamy head of his first drink. He closed his eyes and smiled to himself. When he opened them, he found me watching and smiled ruefully.

  “I feel like maybe I should give you two some time alone…” I joked and moved to stand.

  “You know, you’re right. You can leave. I’ll be right here. Waiter?” We laughed as I sat back down and took a sip of my beer.

  “Mm, it is good, isn’t it? Nothing like a beer from the tap.” Beer wasn’t my favorite, but there was something homey about having a beer at this place. I’d had my first sip, an illicit one given to me by my father, at just thirteen. I’d begged him, the same way I’d begged to taste his coffee years before, and when he finally gave in, I was completely repulsed.

  I knew what I would order the moment we walked in—the same thing I’d eaten every time I’d visited for years, and since the waiter turned to me first, I rattled off my order. The waiter took Luke’s order and I looked down at the menu, tracing the black diamond emblem in the brewery’s logo on the front. I thought about all the times I’d been there in the past, and amazingly, I’d never been on a date there. Most of my high school dating happened in malls or at movies, and then after that, I was off to college and not in these old familiar places. My time at Pete’s spanned decades, but it was almost always with family or dear friends. I guessed that fit.

  “What are you thinking?” His voice cut through my laser focus on the menu.

  “I was thinking about how I’ve never actually been on a date here before,” I said without thinking. And just as quickly, the twinge of heat crept over my chest, up my neck, and burned my cheeks—I’d implied this was a date. At twenty-seven years old, shouldn’t I be over the whole blushing embarrassment thing?

  “I mean, not that this is a date. I just mean—”

  “Why is this not a date?” he interrupted me. He looked at me expectantly, head tilted to the side, and took another sip of his beer.

  “Um—because, you know, it’s you! It’s us. We’ve always just been friends. It’s great,” I stumbled, trying to cover over my fumble and stifle my awkwardness. I looked down into the amber of my ale and hoped he’d change the subject, so I looked back up at him to signal him to move on.

  He kept looking at me, but his brow was furrowed. He slowly set his beer down and rested that hand on the table. He leaned back in his seat without breaking eye contact. He seemed impossibly confident and comfortable with himself. Did they teach that in the Army?

  “We’ve always been friends, that’s true,” he said, almost to himself. He was nodding in slow motion, still looking at me.

  “Yes.” Because I wasn’t sure what else to say, or what to do. I felt like I was getting a gentle letdown from some place high up I wasn’t even reaching for.

  “But what if it is a date?”

  Chapter Three

  He was looking at me like he expected me to say something specific. “I have no idea how to respond to that,” I said.

  “You have no idea how to respond to my asking how you’d feel if this was a date?” he asked, leaning farther forward and resting his hands on the menu.

  Still unsure of what to say and feeling incredibly nervous with him watching me so carefully, I picked up my beer and took a long, slow drink to give me another minute before I had to respond. With unnecessary precision, I set down my glass on the little cardboard coaster and touched my napkin to my mouth before I said, “Yeah. I don’t know how to respond to that.”

  So… that was worth waiting for.

  My eyes darted around and tried to find an excuse to look anywhere but in his eyes, but my little compass arrow was drawn back to his blue-eyed north. After he didn’t speak, I continued, “I mean—sorry. What do you mean?”

  He didn’t wait to reply but said, “This is a date Alex. We’re friends, and we’re on a date. A friendly date. Just because it hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen now.”

  I absorbed his words while taking another sip of my beer. Ok, so a date. But a friend date. A friendly date. So basically not a date, then? Oh good grief, I had no idea how to interpret that. “Well sure, you’re right. Of course. That’s exactly what I meant, too. Friendly date.” I could hear the rambling again but couldn’t seem to stop myself. Maybe food would help. The waiter arrived then, like mercy and sunlight after a hurricane of idiocy, and I forced myself to relax.

  My mouth watered as I pulled in a deep breath filled with the glory of my meal. I bit into one of the highly anticipated tacos I had actively longed for when I was away. Absence indeed made the heart grow fonder where delicious, flakey, spicy fish tacos were concerned. My eyes might have rolled back in my head. I stifled a groan to avoid embarrassing him—I would never be embarrassed by enjoyment of delicious food. I guessed I missed that gene because I couldn’t bring myself to give a second thought to someone else’s perception of me when I was eating something so good. I piled crisp, fresh julienned cabbage into another soft corn tortilla already containing the perfectly toothsome fish and punishingly spicy fresh salsa, my full focus on the food.

  “I’m glad to see nothing has changed,” I heard him say and opened my eyes to find him looking at me with full attention, elbows resting on either side of his plate, chin resting on his folded hands.

  I feigned ignorance. “How so?” I smiled and took another bite. The flavors peppered my tongue, and I blinked a few times in ecstasy.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who enjoys food like you do. Even at ten, you could savor food like it was your job. I remember reading about food writers in some class I took in high school and thinking that sounded like a perfect job for you.” He took a bite of his burger, and said, still chewing, “Oh man, I missed real food.” He finished that bite before taking another.

  “They don’t feed you real food while you’re deployed? What do you eat?” I asked. I didn’t feel nervous anymore. The food had done it—kicked me off my little spiral into neuroticism and back into reality.

  “They do. But it’s sort of like school lunch, you know? You can have a burger at school, and it tastes ok. Tastes like a burger. But you go to a restaurant or grill one up at home, and you control the flavor, the toppings, the kind of ketchup—it tastes how you want it to taste. It’s not coming from the freezer or a vacuum-sealed pack
age. It’s fresh. I’m looking forward to getting home and cooking again.” His attention returned to his burger, and I watched him devour the thing in just three more bites.

  “I guess it makes sense the food isn’t fresh. I’ve never thought that through.” It felt like a silly thing to admit—that I hadn’t ever thought about what he, or any of the soldiers who were deployed, ate. But then maybe that was obvious. Maybe no one but their wives and mothers thought about that.

  “Most people don’t.” He took a swallow of his beer and leaned back in his chair looking sated and relaxed.

  “Wait, go back to what you said before. You cook?” This was a new development, but not a surprising one. He was never interested in cooking—not even with my mother, who made cooking entertaining and sensual and alluring. Not many kids spent hours with their mothers learning to cook like I had, and he was no different. It never occurred to me he might have learned when he got older, but of course he would. I wondered who had taught him and felt an unwelcomed pang at the thought it might have been a girlfriend, or per favore Dio dice no—please God, tell me no, fiancée. But I would have known if he’d been engaged, wouldn’t I? His mom would have told my mom who definitely would have told me.

  No. There hadn’t been a fiancée.

  “After living on my own for a few years, I decided I needed to figure it out. I gained weight when I got back from my first Iraq deployment—drank too much beer and ate too many burgers. So I took some classes, read a few cookbooks, and now I can make what I need to make.” He sounded so nonchalant, like deciding to learn to cook and taking classes for it was a typical thing.

  “You took classes?” I could hear the disbelief in my voice.

  “Yes, why?” His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, maybe wondering if I was going to make fun of him.

  “I think that’s awesome. How many people make time for cooking classes? And maybe especially men, and especially a soldier?” I swallowed the last of my beer and dabbed my lips with my napkin.

  “Well, I did. I really liked it. The chef and her daughter who ran the classes were great. And you know my mom cooked nothing but ground hamburger and jars of spaghetti sauce, so I needed help.” He shook his head, likely remembering the full gamut of offerings his mom Sal had provided over the years. This was one of many reasons he was usually over at my house for dinner whenever he could swing it.

  “I love knowing that, and when I think about it, it’s no surprise. That’s so you—realizing you need to figure something out, and just… doing it. Do you use recipes online, or…?” I asked, trying not to seem overly excited by what recipes he used. Because I was definitely excited by the subject, it took some effort.

  “I’ve relied on Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and then I use the New Best Recipes a lot. And then, yeah, stuff I find online or whatever.” He seemed a little confused, and just before he could speak again I started babbling.

  “Those are both great ones! New Best Recipes is seriously so good. Do you ever watch the Test Kitchen show on PBS?” Before he could respond, I kept talking, my love of cooking on full display. “So good. I could watch that for hours. I have in fact. Bittman’s is good too. I don’t find it as appealing as some because I love good food photography, but his recipes are reliable, and I appreciate that.”

  “You’re a cookbook fanatic, then? This makes total sense.” He moved his fork and knife to his plate, signaling he was finished, and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms as he studied me.

  “Well yes, if you must know, I am a serious cookbook freak. I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to cookbooks and a separate wish list on Amazon for the ones I want to add to the collection. I can’t ever enjoy cooking from a library book, and I feel restless when I print off a recipe from a website if I know I could have it in glossy bound form sitting on my shelf to hoard forever.” I piled my silverware on my plate as well and nudged it out of my way so I could lean my elbows on the edge of the table.

  “Ok, so we’re talking addictive levels of cookbook collection here.”

  “It’s no more an addiction than any other kind of collecting.” I raised my eyebrows at him in challenge, wondering whether he still collected Star Wars Legos with as much relish as he had when he was younger. He smiled brightly and shook his head—I took that as a yes. “But yes. I admit that when I open a new cookbook, my heart rate increases with anticipation and it feels a little bit like the night before Thanksgiving or what I imagine a small hit of cocaine might be like.”

  He smiled a full, broad smile at that, and my whole nervous system stuttered and skipped over itself. Ready to move on from my attachment to cookbooks, I shifted in my seat and crossed one leg over the other. “What did you major in? It’s crazy that I don’t even know what you did in college or anything. We’ve done a terrible job of staying in touch.”

  “True. We have. And I regret that.” His voice was clear and his sincerity warmed me. Or maybe that was the beer.

  “Me too.”

  “I majored in Poli Sci and had a minor in military science—that’s automatic when you do ROTC.”

  “ROTC is the thing you do when you’re in college?” I felt like I should know this. Or I felt bad for not knowing, for some reason.

  “Yeah. You basically sign a contract with the Army and you get all the training for commissioning as an officer when you graduate. That way you commission right after you graduate and then start active duty if you’re selected for it. I also contracted with the National Guard so I could get the GI Bill while I was in college. It was a good way to get through college without debt and make sure I had the career I wanted lined up.”

  “Makes sense. So what do you do now?”

  “I basically make Power Points and Excel spreadsheets for a living.” He shook his head and let out a breath.

  “Uhh… what? I thought you were an infantryman? Doesn’t that mean you shoot weapons and… hunt down bad guys, or something?” I sunk in my chair as I realized I had absolutely no idea what he or anyone in the Army did day to day.

  “There has been a fair amount of that over the years, especially in the beginning. But some jobs are more office-focused, especially while we’re in garrison—not deployed. It’s less shooting and more planning. The job I have now is on the battalion staff—I work on planning the training we do in the field, and a lot of what we do is keep track of what training we need to do and when. I’ll be moving up to brigade in the next little while, which basically just means I’m moving to a different office on Fort Campbell. I do whatever the guy in charge tells me to do, and then I have my own list of responsibilities too, many of which include changing Power Point slides and spreadsheets.”

  “That sounds…” I trailed off, not sure what to say.

  “Glamorous?” he offered.

  I looked at him dubiously.

  “You’re not wrong. And the guy who’s sort of my boss right now is uptight, which makes it even more fun. I’m in this job while another guy wraps up his job and gets ready to move, and then I’ll take over. It’ll change again in a few weeks. You change jobs a lot as an officer which is a blessing and a curse, but in this case, I’ll take it.” He took his napkin from his plate and swiped it across the table in front of him and then set it back on his plate.

  “Can I get you folks some dessert? Coffee?” The waiter hovered over the table looking back and forth between us. Luke waited for me to respond.

  “I wish! I would love to have the bread pudding, but I have no room. Do you?” I shared a regretful look with the waiter as Luke shook his head no. Luke handed his credit card to the waiter and he disappeared.

  “What about you? Your major and all of that?”

  “Business. Minored in communications.”

  “That fits. But you were always more focused on event stuff, right? I thought my mom told me your job in New York was with a big event planning firm. I don’t even know what that means, but I do remember she said it was a big deal.”

  “Yeah.
Every internship I had was focused on events, and that’s my passion. The job in New York was event planning corporate events. But my degrees are all more generally business or management.” And I was glad for that. I had already burnt out on the life I led in New York, hence the changes I was making, and I liked that my degrees gave me a more general focus even if my experience placed me in one field. I was happy in events, but it gave me an edge to understand other parts of the business world too.

  “And the Master’s was in business?”

  “Yep, MBA.”

  “You were always such a nerd at heart,” he said, shaking his head while his eyes sparkled at me. Yeah, they sparkled, and I remembered why everything felt more intense as I looked back at him.

  “Yes. I was. I won’t deny that.”

  The waiter returned with the bill and Luke signed. As we walked out, he placed a hand on the small of my back and every nerve ending in my body zinged and focused on that small area of contact. It seemed like a touch that yes, could have been interpreted as friendly. But it was also a date-date kind of gesture.

  He led me out, holding the door as we exited, and there we were in the cooling outdoors, still bright with summer evening sun.

  “I thought we’d go walk down by the river, if you want. It’s too gorgeous out to be done with the evening, and I still need to hear more about what you’ve been doing for the last few years.” We turned toward the path that led to the river. The best part about our small downtown was its quaint feel and its proximity to the river walk.

  “Good. It’s not like downtown is so far away from my parents’ house, but I just never make it down here. It feels like home, and I have so many good memories in this town, despite how much I wanted to escape.” I smiled at him and clasped my hands together as we strolled the path.

  “You? Escape? I never would have guessed.” He grinned at me. It was always clear I’d be leaving and when. It was just a matter of where I’d go. My dad used to joke I’d steal a horse and ride out of town if no one gave me a scholarship to college.